The Dodecahedron is a character from the book The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. He lives in the city of Digitopolis at the base of the Mountains of Ignorance. On page 148 he has this conversation with Milo and the Humbug. “I’m not very good at problems,”...
If you aren’t closely involved with a college student who is far from home, that might seem like a funny topic for a teaching blog. However, that’s not a rhetorical question. Semester after semester, I have my students create a blog. Their first entry includes a...
For the past week or so, my ENG 111 students have been coping with some problems I’ve set for them as they construct research posters for next week’s NMC student conference on Hunger and Homelessness Awareness. I’ve asked them to include a pathos image (one that...
I read an article in the New York Times this week called "Kids, Would you Please Start Fighting?" and I was struck by the thesis of the piece, especially as it relates to argument writing courses. The author discusses how argument is the genesis for creativity, and...
My first teaching job was at a public high school outside Chicago, and every week I had to submit that week’s daily lesson plans to my department chair. These plans included objectives and activities for each of my classes each day. I did this for the first two years...
This week in my mythology class we discussed Oedipus the King, the famous ancient Greek tragedy about a man (a king) who discovers that he accidentally, unknowingly killed his father, slept with his mother, and had offspring who were also his siblings. The day of that...
Do you <3 your textbook? If you don’t, your students probably don’t either. What would it be like to teach a course with text materials that did exactly what you want them to do? This is the Holy Grail of the OER project. Yes, the price of textbooks is insane...
With knowledge comes responsibility. Knowledge left unchecked or unshared can turn inward and devour the pupil. Some pupils wish to be devoured in order to avoid sharing knowledge. This, again, is the ego and thinking others cannot be trusted with knowledge. While...
I have been thinking about flipping my math class for several years. Last spring I finally did it. I completely flipped my MTH 120 class and will flip others as I find the time required to get it set up. The main tool that has allowed me to flip my class is EdPuzzle...